Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1want ALL to come — everybody; for he respected every-
body, he liked everybody, and so it’s fitten that his funeral
orgies sh’d be public.’
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear
himself talk, and every little while he fetched in his funeral
orgies again, till the duke he couldn’t stand it no more; so
he writes on a little scrap of paper, ‘OBSEQUIES, you old
fool,’ and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and reaching it
over people’s heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it
in his pocket, and says:
‘Poor William, afflicted as he is, his HEART’S aluz right.
Asks me to invite everybody to come to the funeral — wants
me to make ‘em all welcome. But he needn’t a worried — it
was jest what I was at.’
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca’m, and goes to
dropping in his funeral orgies again every now and then,
just like he done before. And when he done it the third time
he says:
‘I say orgies, not because it’s the common term, because
it ain’t — obsequies bein’ the common term — but because
orgies is the right term. Obsequies ain’t used in England
no more now — it’s gone out. We say orgies now in Eng-
land. Orgies is better, because it means the thing you’re
after more exact. It’s a word that’s made up out’n the Greek
ORGO, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew JEESUM, to
plant, cover up; hence inTER. So, you see, funeral orgies is
an open er public funeral.’
He was the WORST I ever struck. Well, the iron- jawed
man he laughed right in his face. Everybody was shocked.